Just a little blog about me and mine.

Las Vegas-Day Two May 19, 2009

After that insanely active day on Monday, we slept until 10:30am–Las Vegas time, so according to our bodies’ Atlanta clocks, that’s 1:30pm. Vacation is awesome.

The Cafe Ile St. Louis in our hotel had 24 hour a day breakfast, so we had some vanilla bean french toast along with eggs and sausage. If you hadn’t noticed, we’re big fans of breakfast.

Then we went in search of some $5 blackjack tables and ended up at Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall and Saloon. Awesome I know. I spent $40 and at one point had an extra $40 in winnings, before losing it all by continuing to bet even though I had doubled my money. PL spent $60 and walked away with $54, and that includes giving several $1 chips to the dealer and the waitresses who bring you free drinks while you play. I had 2 amaretto sours and PL had one or two of those plus maybe a margarita. They just bring you whatever you want while you play. Totally free. Except for the part where you lose all of your money gambling because you were tipsy and didn’t think that having $80 when you used to have $40 was good enough, and then you ended up with $0.

After that we went over to The Mirage to see their Secret Gardens and Dolphin Habitat. We didn’t know it at the time, but The Mirage was celebrating the 1st birthday of some tiger cubs and Siegfried and Roy were there for the day. The staff also gave the tigers presents, which were wrapped cardboard boxes with melons inside. It was hilarious to watch them toss them around and rip up the paper. In addition to tigers, they have a baby leopard and also some lions, plus a dolphin research area.

We took an afternoon break by visiting Serendipity 3, the Las Vegas branch of the original New York cafe. We shared their famous frozen hot chocolate, and also a flat bread pizza with honey dijon chicken on it.

By that time it was around 7, the first show time for the Treasure Island Sirens of TI. It was too windy again for it to run, something about fireworks and the desert and some hotel once catching on fire, blah blah blah, so we hopped in a cab to head to Freemont Street, which is in downtown Las Vegas. Freemont Street is home to some more quaint and historic attractions, and it was a very cool place to visit. It was much more laid back and we had a great time here. Many of the classic Las Vegas neon signs are on display, and a giant canopy has been created to display light shows each night. We saw Carson Daly there too filming something about the area. Here’s a picture if you are a teenage girl, or are still in love with Carson Daly after all these years:

We happened upon an Irish pub called Hennessy’s Tavern on 2 for 1 burger night, so we had a cheap dinner on their patio while a halfway decent cover band called Finnegan’s Wake (cute right?) played.

We also happened upon an ABC Store that had 40s of Smirnoff Ice (I didn’t even know such a wonderful thing existed), much classier than walking around with 40s of Schlitz. Well probably not really, but at least we did put our drinks in our Kahunaville cups from the night before and walk around with those.

There was also a beef jerky store, but sadly it was closed for the evening so we can’t report on why exactly the world needs a beef jerky store.

It turns out there is a double decker public bus you can ride for $3 so we took that back. When we sat down on the top level, we noticed that the ladies in front of us kept waving at the folks down below. Then we noticed those ladies were incredibly drunk as they got mad at anyone who didn’t wave back and kept saying, “Well those folks aren’t friendly. They must not be from Alabama.” The entire 30min plus bus ride, they played a game with rules involving putting your hands up in the air and yelled “whoo-hoo” anytime the bus went under a stoplight–red or green, it didn’t matter. The driver along with everyone else on the bus could hear them and also started to “whoo-hoo” which they found very exciting. Then they tried to start the wave on the bus. Their poor husbands were in for a rough night, but they kept us totally entertained. On this bus ride we also got to see the Graceland wedding chapel and lots of other icon Vegas locales.

Also, there was an “Adult Superstore” that needs to be told to move their parking lot, or at least get a new sign. This is a family blog, but everyone knows an adult superstore doesn’t need a sign that says “parking in the rear.” (PL made sure I wrote that down so I could blog about it. You’re welcome.)